FaceLock Face Recognition App Locking for Gingerbread

With the introduction of Android 4.0, came the facial recognition unlock feature (or gimmick to some). While far from being a secure way of preventing unwanted access to your device, it adds an extra layer of security that requires less effort to use than traditional methods. Inspired by this, XDA member adnanahmad1786 has developed FaceLock for Apps, which takes the same concept and allows you to protect specific applications with facial recognition. Furthermore, it’s compatible with Gingerbread for those of you yet to receive the ICS goods.

The free version allows users to lock Settings, Play Store, Task Manager, and one application of choice. While this is by no means a way of completely securing your device, it’s a pretty cool way of preventing access to specific device features—thus preventing people from messing with your settings and social network accounts, or preventing your kids from making any unwanted purchases on Google Play.

Once the app is trained to recognize your face, any protected app will automatically initiate your front facing camera (which is a requirement for this app, for obvious reasons). Should your face not be recognised, it will ask you for the pin/password you set as a failsafe.

As mentioned previously, the app requires a front facing camera and Android 2.3 or above. It can be found here in it’s original release thread.

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